Network Traffic Generation and Monitoring Systems and Methods for Their Use in Testing Frameworks for Determining Suitability of a Network for Target Applications

1. A method for determining information pertaining to a call traveling through a network from a call origin to a call destination at a given time, comprising: providing a topology discovery unit; using the topology discovery unit for determining a network path the call traverses from the call origin to the call destination at the given time, the network path including a layer-2 portion and a layer-3 portion; providing a network element load monitoring unit; using the network element load monitoring unit to determine load on all network devices on the network oath the call traverses at the given time; determining utilization and error statistics on all network devices on the network path the call traverses at the given time; and determining end-to-end quality of the call at the given time.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising: determining all network paths traversed by calls during the given time interval; determining load, utilization, and error statistics on all devices in the network during a given time interval; determining the quality of all calls during the given time interval; storing such information in a data store organized to handle significant volumes of data; and integrating on a common time scale simultaneous call path, call quality, network path utilization measurements.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said step of determining the network path at the given time includes: determining the layer-3 path between the endpoints of a call based on topological discovery; and determining a multi-layer path between endpoints of a call based on topological discovery.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said step of determining the network path at a given time includes determining the layer-3 path between endpoints of a call based on collecting trace route information.

5. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said step of determining the load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the call path includes: polling devices in said network with SNMP requests at regular intervals in the order of seconds; time stamping each SNMP request; receiving responses from said devices in response to said SNMP requests; time stamping each SNMP response; detecting load states in each device from said responses; determining utilization and error variable data for each device; and storing said load states, utilization and error variable data in a data store.

6. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the said step of integrating call path, call quality, network path utilization measurements includes automatic integration of all measurements based on data in the data store.

7. The method according to claim 6 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to a call traveling through a network at a given time interval, which includes: determining the network paths the call traverses during the given time interval; determining the load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the call paths during the given time interval; and determining the end-to-end quality of the call during the given time interval.

8. The method according to claim 6 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to a call path in a network during a given time interval, which includes: determining the load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the path during the time interval; determining the calls going over the path during the time interval; and determining the end-to-end quality incurred by all calls going over the path during the time interval.

9. The method according to claim 6 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to a network device at a given time interval, which includes: determining the load, utilization, and error statistics during the time interval; and determining the quality incurred by all calls going over the device during the time interval.

10. A method comprising: providing a network element load monitoring unit; using the network element load monitoring unit to determine load on all network devices on a call oath including a layer-2 portion and a layer-3 portion at a time; determining utilization and error statistics on all network devices on the call path at the time; determining number of calls going over the path at the time; and determining end-to-end quality incurred by all calls going over the path at the time.

11. A method for determining information pertaining to a call traveling through a network at a given time, comprising: providing a topology discovery unit; using the topology discovery unit for determining a network path the call traverses at the given time; providing a network element load monitoring unit; using the network element load monitoring unit to determine load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the call path at the given time; determining end-to-end quality of the call at the given time; wherein said step of determining the quality of a call includes: injecting synthetic calls into the network with various parameters to reflect different types of traffic; time stamping each synthetic call when injected; measuring metrics indicative of quality of injected calls; and storing said metrics and a time of measurement in a data store; determining all network paths traversed by calls during the given time interval; determining load, utilization, and error statistics on all devices in the network during a given time interval; determining the quality of all calls during the given time interval; storing such information in a data store organized to handle significant volumes of data; and integrating on a common time scale simultaneous call path, call quality, network path utilization measurements.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein said metric is end-to-end one-way delay for at least one direction of voice transmission in a call.

13. The method according to claim 11 , wherein said metric is jitter for at least one direction of voice transmission in a call.

14. The method according to claim 11 , wherein said metric is packet loss for at least one direction of voice transmission in a call.

15. The method according to claim 11 , wherein said quality variable data is packet loss burst for at least one direction of voice transmission in a call.

16. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the injected synthetic calls are automatically generated at topologically chosen positions.

17. A system for measuring call quality over a network comprising: an apparatus for injecting synthesized calls having characteristics of actual calls into the network; an apparatus for coordinating the injection of synthesized calls to reflect different types of configurations; an apparatus for computing metrics indicative of call quality pertaining to each call; and an apparatus for storing said computed metrics in a data store.

18. A method for use in assessing the quality of service (QoS) in a network with respect to target applications comprising: providing a network element load monitoring unit; providing a topology discovery unit; collecting simultaneous network measurements consisting of network paths, traffic on network devices, and QoS measurements across network paths using the load monitoring unit to collect the measurements of traffic on the network devices; graphically relating said simultaneous measurements to each other on a given time scale; determining layer-3 paths between network devices based on topological discovery; determining multi-layer paths between network devices based on topological discovery; and determining paths between network devices and collecting trace route information and storing such information along with the time of measurement in a data store.

19. The method according to claim 18 , including: polling devices in the said network with requests at regular intervals on the order of seconds; time stamping each request; receiving responses from said devices in response to said requests; time stamping each response; determining the load, utilization, and error statistics for each device; and storing said load, utilization and error statistics along with the time of measurement in a data store.

20. A method for use in assessing the quality of service (QoS) in a network with respect to target applications comprising: providing a topology discovery unit; collecting simultaneous network measurements consisting of network paths, using the topology discovery unit, traffic on network devices, and QoS measurements across network paths; and relating the simultaneous measurements on the same time scale, wherein determining the QoS across network paths includes: injecting synthetic traffic into the network at regular intervals between endpoints placed throughout the network; synthesizing the injected traffic with various parameters to reflect different types of traffic characteristics; time stamping the injected traffic; measuring metrics indicative of QoS received by injected traffic; and storing said metrics along with the time of measurement in a data store.

21. The method according to claim 20 , wherein the parameters of synthetic traffic injected between two endpoints at regular intervals include duration of the interval, duration between two consecutive intervals, packets size, codec, and QoS markings (TOS, Diffserv, VLAN tags).

22. The method according to claim 21 , wherein the parameters of the injected traffic are configurable to reflect the characteristics of the target application.

23. The method according to claim 20 , wherein said metric is end-to-end one-way delay for traffic flowing between two endpoints.

24. The method according to claim 23 , wherein said metric is jitter for traffic flowing in both directions between two endpoints.

25. The method according to claim 23 , wherein said metric is packet loss for traffic flowing in both directions between two endpoints.

26. The method according to claim 23 , wherein said metric is packet loss burst for traffic flowing in both directions between two endpoints.

27. The method according to claim 20 , wherein the injected synthetic traffic is automatically generated between topologically chosen endpoints.

28. A method for use in assessing the quality of service (QoS) in a network with respect to target applications comprising: providing a topology discovery unit; collecting simultaneous network measurements consisting of network paths, using the topology discovery unit, traffic on network devices, and QoS measurements across network paths; and relating the simultaneous measurements on the same time scale, wherein said step of relating simultaneous measurements consisting of network paths, traffic on network devices, and QoS across network paths comprises: determining all network paths traversed by injected traffic at a given time using a data store; determining the load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices at a given time using the data store; determining the end-to-end QoS incurred by synthetic traffic at a given time using the data store; and integrating the said simultaneous information on the same time scale.

29. The method according to claim 28 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to synthetic traffic traveling through a network at a given time, which includes: determining the network path the synthetic traffic traverses at the time; determining load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the path of the synthetic traffic at the time; and determining end-to-end QoS incurred by the synthetic traffic at the time.

30. The method according to claim 28 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to a path between two endpoints in the network at a given time, which includes: determining load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the path at the time; and determining end-to-end quality of service incurred by the synthetic traffic going over the path at the time.

31. The method according to claim 28 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to a network device at a given time, which includes: determining load, utilization, and error statistics of the said device at the time; and determining the quality of service incurred by the synthetic traffic going over the device at the time.

32. The method according to claim 28 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to synthetic traffic traveling through a network at a given time interval, which includes: determining the network paths the synthetic traffic traverses during the given time interval; determining the load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the paths of the synthetic traffic during the given time interval; and determining the end-to-end quality of service incurred by the synthetic traffic during the given time interval.

33. The method according to claim 28 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to the path between two endpoints in a network during a time interval, which includes: determining the load, utilization, and error statistics on all network devices on the path during the time interval; and determining the end-to-end quality of service incurred by synthetic traffic going over the path during the time interval.

34. The method according to claim 28 , further comprising: determining information pertaining to a network device at a given time interval, which includes: determining the load, utilization, and error statistics during the time interval; and determining the quality of service incurred by synthetic traffic going over the device during the time interval.

35. A system for collecting simultaneous network measurements consisting of network paths, traffic on network devices, and QoS measurements across network paths; and integrating the said simultaneous measurements on the same time scale, comprising: an apparatus for conducting topological discovery; an apparatus for collecting trace route information; an apparatus for sending and receiving device polling requests at regular intervals; an apparatus for storing the collected load, utilization, and error statistics for network devices in a data store; an apparatus for injecting synthetic traffic; an apparatus for coordinating the injection of traffic to reflect different types of network configurations and traffic parameters; an apparatus for computing metrics indicative of the QoS received by the synthetic traffic; an apparatus for storing the said collected information in the data store; an apparatus for accessing data store, and an apparatus for relating simultaneous network measurements in the data store on the same timescale.